It explicits says that adversaries may already be collecting encrypted U.S. data, or information mathematically scrambled into an unreadable format to protect it from unauthorized access, and could decrypt it in future with the help of quantum computers.

That’s the “harvest now, decrypt later” problem. Steal the locked box today, crack it open whenever the tool to do so finally exists.

The fix, according to the order, is a hard post quantum cryptography (PQC) migration timeline. Federal agencies must move their most sensitive systems to post-quantum cryptography for key establishment by the end of 2030, and for digital signatures by the end of 2031.

In other words, the government plans to replace the current method for setting up secure, encrypted connections with a new way that remains secure from future quantum computers.

The crypto angle

Quantum computing has been a buzzword in the crypto industry since Google researchers said a sufficiently powerful machine could crack Bitcoin’s blockchain with significantly less firepower than previously expected.

The March paper, co-authored with Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake and Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh, said that breaking the elliptic curve cryptography behind Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains could take fewer than 500,000 physical qubits. That’s a 20-fold drop from earlier estimates.